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Attorney challenges race-based claims in Deen lawsuit

In the latest point-counterpoint of the discrimination lawsuit filed against celebrity chef Paula Deen and her brother, Earl W. “Bubba” Hiers, Hiers’ lawyer argues the woman who filed the suit has no right to even file the action.

In a motion filed in federal court after court hours Friday, attorney Tom Withers says Lisa Jackson has stubbornly pursued race-based claims she knows are false in an effort at “personal destruction” of the defendants.

Jackson and her attorneys “know that certain essential allegations in her race-based claims are demonstrably false and have no support in the law, yet they have pursued those claims in a stubborn effort at the personal destruction of defendants through this litigation,” Withers argued.

Jackson’s lawyers have until July 8 to respond to the motion in the case before U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr.

Jackson, a former general manager at Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House Inc. on Whitemarsh Island, which Hiers operates, contends in her suit she was the victim of sexual harassment and a persistent pattern of racial discrimination in the workplace during her five years there.

Defense attorneys contend the suit is designed to damage Deen’s brand and reputation.

The suit against Deen, her brother and her family-run enterprises was originally filed in Chatham County Superior Court but later moved to federal court.

Controversy erupted last week when portions of a deposition Deen gave in May were made public and she revealed in response to a question that she had used the “N” word at some point “a very long time ago.”

On Friday, Deen posted two video apologies and asked for forgiveness in each of them.

Later in the day, the Food Network announced it would not renew her contract when it expired on Sunday.

Deen’s fans have responded by urging a boycott of the Food Network.

In Withers’ motion, he argued that Jackson cannot claim racial discrimination despite her claims that her nieces “are bi-racial with an African-American father” and “derogatory remarks regarding African-Americans are even more personally offensive to Ms. Jackson than they would be to another white citizen.”

Withers said Jackson conceded in a deposition that the “nieces” were related to her partner, Priscilla Sumerlin. Jackson said the “niece” had a father who was “Puerto-Rican African-American” and that she was “very close” to the “nieces.”

“There is a single niece of Ms. Summerlin,” Withers said.

In Summerlin’s deposition, Withers said she “flatly refuted Jackson’s claim” when Sumerlin testified the child’s father was Hispanic, not African-American, and that she hadn’t seen the child for years.

“Jackson cannot enforce someone else’s right, and she has no actionable claim for feeling ‘uncomfortable’ around discriminatory conduct directed at others,” Withers’ argued.

“The result of the stubborn pursuit of those claims has been an unwarranted expansion of this case into claims that should never have been brought.”